


Once A Good Man

by tielan



Series: Imagine Your OTP [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Imagine your OTP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 16:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8168470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: Imagine your OTP as a superhero and a supervillain opposing each other.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It would be usual to cast Steve as the hero and Maria as the villain, wouldn't it?

They say he was a good man once.

A man worth following, a man worth fighting alongside, a man who would fight injustice and stand against tyranny, who could take Abraham Erskine’s serum and not be corrupted by it. In every story ever told about him during the war, he was painted as a hero. But even heroes have their human sides.

_Good becomes better_ , said Erskine’s notes, dug up after she saw the shape of things to come, _Bad becomes worse._

It’s not so great a step for protection to become possession, for defence to become domination.

After all, isn’t that how HYDRA blossomed under the aegis of S.H.I.E.L.D? How Ross justified the confinement of the Avengers? How Asgard reasoned that Earth needed a Lord Protector?

And yet she never thought she’d see it in Steve.

Perhaps she should have.

_I don’t like seeing you in danger, Maria._

_And you think I’ll consent to be tucked safely away? That’s not my job, Steve._

_My job is to save the world – I can’t do that when I’m worrying about you._

_And my job is to keep you saving the world, which sometimes means doing what needs to be done – not sitting back and letting the big damn heroes manage everything._

If he thinks she’s going to sit back and let him rule the world by Avengers dictate – even as someone to whom large parts of the world look to as a hero – he has another think coming.

One thing makes this time different.

In every other confrontation she’s ever faced of this nature, her opponent either didn’t know she was there, or didn’t know how to find her. Madam Hydra thought she was nothing more than a rogue Marine. Deputy Director Boyle considered her an inconvenience. HYDRA underestimated her. Cameron Pyc couldn’t pin her down.

Her best hope now is that Steve thinks she’s still licking her wounds over Auckland.

It’s not much hope, but she’ll take it.

 


End file.
